WeCaN indigenous woman champion Jane Meriwas: How an inheritance of two goats drove the fight against discrimination and harmful cultural practices

17/02/2023

“At ten years old I went to school by chance. My father disagreed with the education opportunity proposed by a Catholic mission nearby my village, and he considered me useless. He recommended marrying me off as soon as possible.” This was the harsh reality for Jane Meriwas. Eventually, she attended school classes sitting under a tree in the afternoon, after taking goats to pasture every morning. Thanks to this brave choice to dream of better opportunities in her future, she escaped from an early marriage and got an education.

When her mother passed away, Jane fought for recognition of inheritance of just two small “goats”. Because she had no male siblings, she was able to take over the goats and use the small profit to move forward with her education.

Upon completing college, beyond being a graduated herder, she dedicated the next few years to her Samburu community in Kenya’s Rift Valley region. She raised awareness of the Samburu’s harmful cultural practices and has been speaking out against the ills meted out to girls in her community.

She remembers the first community meeting she attended, where the women were usually not consulted because they didn’t own property. She insisted on expressing her thoughts, and slowly she forged a representative role in her own community. In doing so, she was able to crack two strict social norms surrounding land and livestock management that had disempowered women for generations.

Over the years, she has worked on women’s economic empowerment projects, helping indigenous women to increase their own small savings by enabling them to access, own, control and manage resources. Thanks to her personal experience with the goats, she managed to support other women and show her father why education is so important, persuading him to trust in her life’s path. Her father finally supported her cause, and began to challenge other religious and opinion leaders about the importance of education for both girls and boys and challenging the community’s perspectives.

In fact, her father became the first advocator for women and girls to participate in community decision-making and driving positive changes that affect Samburu.

Throughout her life, Jane has amplified indigenous women's voices, mostly pastoralists, fisherfolks and hunter-gatherers. In 2009 she started the Samburu Women Trust so as to influence policies that target women. The organization counts over 2000 women groups, networks and community-based organizations (CBOs) across Kenya, and it is also represented at the Kenya women's rights commission where it continues to advocate for the inclusiveness of indigenous women in the decision-making spaces in the country. Community awareness, socio-economic empowerment programs, mobilization and training around climate change resilience, Community Land Act, tenure laws, and harmful cultural practices enable the women’s and girls’ groups to defend their rights and protect the community’s economic, social and cultural interests.

Questions such as What the indigenous women aspire to influence and encourage the social change? Which discriminations are we facing as indigenous women and girls in the environment we operate in? What would we like to include in the statemen to reach to the relevant bodies and public actors? What is effectively working within our indigenous community so that we use positive strides and developed lessons learnt? are on their advocacy meeting to encourage indigenous changemakers to lead their own development way.